Apache CXF: Unbounded DEFLATE Decompression in CXF JOSE/JWE and SAML Processing (Decompression Bomb)

CompressionUtils.inflate() decompressed attacker-controlled DEFLATE data with no output-size cap. A small (~KB) crafted payload could expand to gigabytes on the heap. Reachable via JWE decryption when zip=DEF (e.g. JoseSessionTokenProvider with RSA-OAEP key wrap) and via SAML redirect/POST binding token inflation — in both cases decompression happens before/independent of trust validation. Fix: Added a configurable maximum inflated-size cap (default 10 MiB, org.apache.cxf.compression-max-inflated-size system property) to CompressionUtils.inflate(); aborts with DataFormatException once exceeded. Users are recommended to upgrade to versions 4.2.4 or 4.1.9 or 3.6.13, which fix this issue.

Source published

9 Oct 2026 10:18:00 UTC

Source modified

15 Oct 2026 16:16:44 UTC

Observed here

23 Oct 2026 15:48:27 UTC

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